Movember partners with Institute for Strategic Dialogue to reduce harms for young men online

Improving online spaces for young men

We’ve always aimed to go where men are. For young men today, that means the digital world. We’ve gone all in, and are committed to better understanding and improving young men’s experiences in online spaces. Since the launch of our Young Men’s Health in a Digital World report, which explored the voices and experiences of young men engaging with masculinity influencer content online and how it is impacting their health, we have since been turning our attention to what needs to change.

We’ve started a stream of work that looks at how to decrease health harms that young men experience in online spaces. Our approach will be to work with partners and policy makers to bring attention to the experiences of young men online and to advocate for policy that supports the health of young men and boys.

Announcing a new partnership

The first step in this process has been defining what the problems are, and therefore what needs to change. For this, we’re excited to announce a partnership with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (ISD), drawing on ISD’s expertise on online harms to write policy papers on four politically relevant topics that translate research into real world recommendations which would improve the online world for young men and those around them. The recommendations are built from ISD’s and Movember’s expertise in online safety, men and boys’ health and digital citizenship and online interventions. These papers will be used to start conversations with UK government partners, bringing in young men's experiences into these existing policy conversations to support the thinking of others and bring new solutions where possible.

So what will the work focus on?

The four policy papers cover four key policy topic areas that are currently being discussed by UK government partners:

1. Online harms and men and boy's health – submitted to the Department of Health to support the development of the Men’s Health Strategy
2. Online safety regulation
3. Online harms and education
4. Online misogyny, men & boys health and violence against women

Stay tuned for more to come

The papers will also be summarised throughout the year on Movember’s Substack. For more details email advocacy@movember.com